bye bye sitemeter

I had noticed recently a strange URL showing up in the status bar when I tried viewing this blog, from specificclick.net, a few weeks ago. It would show up during the loading of the page, and I knew for a fact that such a URL was not in my blog template anywhere. I didn't know what it was all about until I read this:

It’s so sad for me to hear that SiteMeter, a well-known web stats providers, is pushing specificclick tracking and advertising cookies on to visitors of sites using their service.

Well I happen to think that a stunt like that is total BS. Sitemeter wants to put cookies on the computer of everyone who visits my blog? Well to heck with that noise. I'm giving Sitemeter the heave-ho, and using Statcounter instead.

I cannot for the life of me figure out why Sitemeter would shoot themselves in the foot like this. Not only are people going to drop them like a hot potato, they have probably irrevocably destroyed their brand name as well. This is basically going to completely destroy their business, all for a few dollars (which they aren't going to be getting paid for very long, as I don't see how their business can survive a body blow like the one that's coming over the next few weeks, as more and more people find out about this). What a waste.

(hat tip to Transterrestrial Musings)

Update: There has been some question as to what the precise problem is here, so some further explanation is necessary. Specificclick.net is a daughter company of Specific Media, part of the Realplayer borg collective. They are putting tracking cookies on the computer of everyone who visits a site with sitemeter, and tracking that user's browsing habits. Basically, they are putting a small piece of code on user's computers, allowing the user's own computer to spy on their browsing. Then the resulting information is sold to other companies. In other words, Sitemeter is putting spyware onto people's computers.